Hay Making for Dummies

[flusher]

No tedder.

Well, I asked, and you guys have given me lots of info & sound advice.:thumbsup:

Im now more terrified than ever :laughing:, This may be too much for my first year. I think i will see if I can find someone to take off of the bulk of the hay, and Ill deal with just one of the fields for now.

Assisting someone locally is good advice too. I know someone further south, where they hay earlier in the season, that may be a good idea to get the experience several weeks in advance of when I need to start.

Just to complete my input to this discussion, I have several neighbors who grow hay crops on large acreage--one has 30 acres of irrigated alfalfa; another dry-farms about 200 acres of oats or beardless wheat (he alternates year to year). Both of them use self-propelled Hesston windrowers (aka swathers) to mow their crops



The alfalfa windrows are combined using a dual bar rake setup.



A self-propelled 3-twine NH baler does the alfalfa (the engine is a Deutz diesel, the front wheel is driven by a hydraulic motor)



Baling on the 200-acres is done with a towed baler that has it's own engine (like this NH66 baler with a 2-cyl Wisconsin gas engine)



The nice feature of these balers is that the baler operation (70-80 strokes) per minute is completely independent of the tractor so you can control ground speed with the foot throttle on the tractor without changing the baler rpm. Very helpful when the windrows are not uniform.

 

[banjodunn]

G'day we regulary cut and bale approx 250/300 acres a year of our own and we contract about another 12/1500 acres. Over here we usually are 5-8 days from cutting to raking and baling depends on weather and hay conditions, we bale in small and big squares and large round rolls we use a NH discbine for mowing large "v" wheel rake and NH 56 rollerbar rake for smalller areas or for small squares when you don't want as big windrow, and all NH balers ( I have spent the last 4 years working for a dealer but used to think they made the best before that:thumbsup. I think you have had some good advise here and hope that it all goes well for you as for cutting a 90deg corner i think you have enough to worry about, we don't do that we just run out the corners when we are just about finished and then we rake and bale the headlands out first and that gives you a bit more room on your corners for your baler . Hope it goes/went well


Jon

 

[FLHayman]

I do a little less than 75 acres per cutting, and it wears me out on my own. In the southeast US, I like to see 4 days with 20% or less chance of precipitation. I always use a tedder on the 2nd day, unless I'm positive that it's going to be dry and windy. The reason is that if you have just a little wet hay on the ground, then rake it where it doesn't get dried out further, or a bit of weeds in your field, then you've got potential for moldy hay. I have recently gotten into moisture testers, and they are very accurate and repeatable if you use the same pressure/density against the probes when you test.

For picking up square bales, I use a hay accumulator/grapple setup loading onto traditional hay wagons, then tow it under cover. The drier and tighter I make the bales, the better for stacking. Actually, wet bales stack great at first, but have a danger of heating up or molding, so I look for low (for Florida) humidity or afternoon to actually bale it. Wind helps your drying time immensely, but double check any hay that spends most of the day in the shadows of nearby trees. Sometimes I'll rake around that hay and leave it for the next day, if the next day doesn't rain. Be aware that you can bale hay that will heat up enough to burn down your barn if you're not meticulous about testing your hay for moisture. Tedding once or twice really helps dry it all out in the humid southeast. When you do test your hay for complete drying, go to the spots that seem like they get the least sun, that's where your problems will come from.

I used to use a haybine, and would always lift it up if I saw an anthill or gopher mound about to be cut......that will save your blades a little bit, and leave a little mohawk-like marker for you to go out and level the anthill after you've picked up the hay.

10 acres would be plenty enough to practice on for any one man operation. I cut one day, ted the next, and maybe rake the 3rd, or ted again, then bale on the 4th if the weather is normal. On beautiful, breezy, dry days, everybody can bale on the 3rd day. Some out West can bale almost immediately, but don't count on that, I recommend a tedder for more even drying. Remember, it can take quite a while to put that hay up in the barn by yourself.

 

[rpirkle1]

Good morning...

Saw someone explaining square corners using right hand turns which works... and takes some work to learn.

In a fenced field, you've got no option though for the first 3-5 laps.

Once you've got some room... turning left is easier. When you come to the corner you raise the mower (as it finishes cutting)... proceed past the corner and turn left (on a square field it's 270 degrees) so that the mower lines up with your new direction.

With good hydraulics this works smoothly after practice and to me takes less effort than the timing to make the right hand 90 degree turn work smoothly. For odd shaped fields (say where a corner is way less than 90 degrees) it's a near must.

Hope this makes sense ... either way will work with practice.

 

[sjbrunk0]

My situation is almost exactly like Dave's... first year to try this, have had others cut my hay in the past but they are not interested any more and made my hay a really low priority anyway.
Wanted to thank all the experts, this thread was super helpful for me also.